Perfection within the field of human performance is a myth. Yet it persists.
In a recent interview with host Terry Gross on Fresh Air, a renowned cellist said, “What allows me to not be paralyzed is to just say, I’m doing my best. And if it doesn’t work, you know my intention is to do the best.”
Ma added that he kept himself alive and working, avoiding burnout by saying, “How do you rejuvenate, regenerate, and constantly be curious and active and do your best? I try and forgive myself because I don’t want to be neurotic.”
Limits to perfection
Understanding one’s limitations is often difficult for high achievers. Musicians says Ma may push themselves into the trap of the “industrial aesthetic”—error-free performance, as can be done in manufacturing.
Seeking further insights, I asked Tiffany Chang, an orchestra conductor, “I tell musicians that each performance doesn’t need to be exactly the same. It’s easy for a musician to have an ideal product in mind, and we spend all our efforts to recreate that ideal in practice. That is not always practical! The phrasing, tempo changes, and the tough corners don’t need to be executed in the exact same way. It is more important to be aware of each other at the moment and to navigate these passages together.”
“I remind them that perfection is not the destination,” says Chang. “Taking a step toward better is the goal. There is no one perfect interpretation. There is only our interpretation that is right for us today because of all the factors, human and otherwise, we are faced with today. It’s helpful to focus on being better rather than being perfect.”
“I help my musicians by providing them with an interpretation, while giving them artistic licenses and space to find a way to realize that musical image on their own, rather than giving them step by step instructions or micromanaging,” says Change. “I give them the basis for a story, and ask them to find and perform the evidence in the music that supports and paints that particular story.”
“Tactile Thinking”
One way YoYo Ma keeps himself fresh is by employing different modes of thinking. Analytical thinking focuses on facts. Empathetic thinking focuses on feeling, but there is another thing – “tactile thinking.” His wife knows what he is doing because she can picture him working through “fingering and bowing” on the cello without playing. Ma says many others do the same, whether golf or tennis, thinking about how you will play a shot or react to a ball hitting you.
Chang says, “It’s easy to simply think ‘I just want it to be better’ which is quite vague and can lead to more of a reactive and passive rather than proactive approach.” By contrast, Chang works as their coach. “I ask musicians to think about one, two or three specific goals they want to tackle each rehearsal and each performance.”
A good way – perhaps the best way – to keep in sync with self and others is via listening. Chang says, “Listening is crucial to achieve this connection and synergy.” How a piece is performed a given way one time does not dictate how it must be played the next time. “It’s more important that we are in sync with each other right now and supporting each other in today’s performance, rather than going rogue or being stubborn to do it ‘more right’ against a theoretical ideal.”
And that’s not bad advice for the rest of us. Listen and collaborate, and see what good things can happen.
It’s the easiest shot in golf because you don’t have to hit the ball.
I perked up when veteran golf pro Tim Katanski said that to me. While I have been playing golf for decades — and, of course, I knew that you don’t strike the ball directly when it’s resting on the sand — I had never heard it expressed so clearly.*
My point is not to impart a golf lesson. That would be malpractice. [When asked what my “handicap” is, I reply. Myself!] The lesson of the sand shot is to find ways to explicate, elucidate and teach with simplicity. Use similes and metaphors that make the complicated less so and, in the process, make it more accessible.
Strive for clarity
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” is a phrase attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. As a true Renaissance man – an innovator, scientist, and artist – Leonardo sought to understand the world around him, applying his intellect and talents to interpret what he observed and to devise new methodologies.
Complexity is the bedevilment of our culture. As the adage goes, it’s easy to make things complicated and more challenging to make them simpler. Simplicity is the act of reduction, not elimination. You want to make what you say understandable to make it easier to comprehend, thereby increasing accessibility and ultimately making it more actionable.
The challenge for managers is to communicate with clarity and often with brevity.
Consider the following truisms:
Know your purpose. Find your path.
Managers mind the details. Leaders inspire their followers.
Process is a way of doing. Principles are a way of being.
Discern, decide and delegate.
One team. One heartbeat.
Create your simple statements
Each one is simple and direct. The secret to formulating your own is to frame your issue. What is happening? What do you need people to do? Why do you need them to do it? For example, your competitor is launching a new product. Formulate your response. Make it short and pithy. “Our edge is the people who build and serve our products.”
Or budget cuts are challenging. You do more with less. Try this. “Do the best we can with what we have.” It’s not a rah-rah statement; it’s an iteration of reality that frames performance not as a limitation but as an aspiration.
Simplicity is the essence of knowledge. Striving for it is seldom easy, but achieving it can be rewarding. Just like a well-struck sand shot!
*Caveat: This instruction applies to greenside sand shots. If the ball is in a fairway bunker – well away from the green — you sweep it out, making direct contact with the ball.
James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, which suffered an oxygen tank leak 200 miles from Earth, almost never had the opportunity to fly that mission.
As reporter Russell Lewis of National Public Radio noted in his remembrance of Lovell’s passing, perseverance was his special strength. Lovell did not get into the Naval Academy on his first try. He was later accepted and became a combat fighter pilot and qualified for the test pilot program at Edwards AFB. He did not qualify for the Mercury astronaut program, but was later accepted into the Gemini program. Again, a second try was successful.
Handling adversity
These setbacks steeled James Lovell to be an astronaut who could handle the pressures in times of adversity. Fear was not an option in times of crisis. As Lovell told the New York Times years later, “We were all test pilots, and the only thing we could do was try to get home,” he said to The New York Times in 1995. “The idea of despair never occurred to us, because we were always optimistic we would get home.”
It was this kind of bravery that transfixed the nation and, decades later, after Lovell published his story of the mission, led to a landmark motion picture directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks as Lovell.
Crisis leadership and teamwork
One thing Lovell noted about the Apollo 13 mission was NASA’s leadership. It scrambled together ad hoc solutions to engineer fixes that could make the command module safe enough to return to Earth.
As Lovell told NPR in 2014, Apollo 13 “showed was what you could do with good leadership in an organization, how good leadership fosters teamwork, and how teamwork and initiative, when you faced a problem – to use the initiative or imagination to try to solve the problem because everything doesn’t flow freely in life, and things change.”
Perseverance + Resilience
Perseverance is something that strengthens as we use it—learning from Lovell’s example, when we face obstacles, we do not give up immediately. Learn from what you did and improve when necessary. Perseverance is an attribute of resilience, a must-have for anyone in leadership.
Resilience emerges, as it did for Lovell, from setbacks. Do not become discouraged. Reflect on your past successes. Self-confidence is honed by achievement. Sometimes achievements come easily, but the ones that require extra effort are those that prepare us to face emerging challenges.
Although Lovell captained Apollo 8, the first mission to leave Earth’s orbit and circle the Moon, he never achieved his dream of landing on the Moon. Life does not always work out as planned but Lovell made his mark in history by turning disaster into a life-saving mission.
One comment stood out among the avalanche of video clips that media channels played upon the passing of Robert Redford.
An interviewer asked Redford if he were pleased with what he had accomplished. The actor, then in his eighties, but still maintaining his youthful charm, replied that he was.
Of course, skeptics might say that Robert Redford was a superstar, the kind Hollywood used to have but is less common today. He had been a screen presence for sixty years, starring in such memorable classics as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (with fellow icon Paul Newman) and The Sting (again with Newman). There were also hits like All the President’s Men, Three Days of the Condor and Out of Africa.
Branching Out
Redford applied his talents behind the camera, serving as director on Ordinary People (for which he won an Oscar) and later directing eight other films including A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show and The Horse Whisperer.
Redford once said that if you were a movie star, few would take you seriously. While that may have been the norm for some, it did not apply to him.
Movies were not his only passion. Believing firmly in filmmaking as an art form, he launched the Sundance Film Festival in his adopted home state of Utah. This festival launched landmark films by many who would become major directors, including Quentin Tarantino and Ava DuVernay.
Living as he did in Utah, experiencing nature was paramount, and so he became an ardent environmentalist using his public platform to raise awareness for conservation and preservation of natural wilderness.
Facing adversity
Idyllic, yes, but not always. Redford lost a daughter in infancy, another son, age 58, died of cancer, his daughter experienced a near-death auto accident, and his first marriage ended in divorce. Later, he suffered financial losses and had to sell his stake in Sundance.
In fact, his early life gave no hint of his future. His mother died when he was a teen, and that loss set him somewhat adrift. He earned a baseball scholarship to Colorado but dropped out, in part because he enjoyed partying more than studying. He went to Europe for a year and made a living by selling street drawings. He had a knack for illustration.
Lessons for us
What Redford reminds us is to reflect on what we have accomplished by focusing on what we have done, rather than what we might have done. Take pride in your accomplishments, but do not dwell on them. Continue to pursue new horizons in your life and career.
Bob Woodward, legendary reporter for the Washington Post and who was portrayed by Redford in All the President’s Men, said, “I loved him, and admired him — for his friendship, his fiery independence, and the way he used any platform he had to help make the world better, fairer, brighter for others.”
Redford persevered, and so his comment about being pleased with what he had accomplished resonates. One commenthe made resonates with those who did not know him in the days of his full stardom.
“I try to avoid giving advice. The only advice I will give is to pay attention. I don’t mean to the screen in your hand.”
In short, life is meant to be lived in reality, not virtually.
“You know, the way
you just played it sounded the best,” said my friend Dan.
“Know why?”
I paused, waiting
for a compliment. “Because you were playing my part.”
Gulp!
Dan is a guitarist
far more accomplished on guitar than I am on piano, and so when he speaks, I
listen. (It also helps that Dan Denisonis an emeritus university professor
and a long-time friend.)
We were jamming on
“A Foggy Day” in London town, a favorite Gershwin tune of both of
ours. As a soloist, I have no problem playing the piece, as an accompanist –
whose role is “to comp” the chords (with occasional riffs) I suck.
Defining your
role
Dan is teaching me
how to play better with others musically, and so his advice is valuable for my
development. His insights are also applicable to anyone in a leadership
position.
At times when one
is in management, either for the first time or even after years of practice,
there may be a tendency to do someone else’s job. Doing so not only harms
productivity – because you are trying to do two jobs – it is also demoralizing
to the employee. It robs them of their confidence and thwarts their ability to
learn on the job.
Leaders who
recognize the limitations of their employees must apply that insight to
themselves. Sometimes a leader covers for an employee because they are afraid
to decide their future. Other times, they feel it is their job to help, but in
reality, they are doing more harm than good.
Action steps
While leaders know
the pitfalls, they still fall into this trap, so here are some things to keep
in mind before “jumping in.”
Pause. Consider the situation. What is happening,
and why is the employee not performing?
Provide
guidance, not instruction.
When speaking to the employee, act as a coach. Find out what is holding the
individual back from performing up to par. You can provide pointers, but it is
not your job to be the instructor.
Weigh your
options. If the employee
is not up to the job, do not prolong the pain. Be honest with the employee and
explain why they are not doing the job. It may be an opportunity for them to do
something different or find new opportunities.
Final word
“If you seek
tranquility,” wrote Marcus Aurelius, “do less.” Tranquility in
this case does not mean doing nothing; it means doing just enough so that you
fulfill your role in ways that open the door for others to do their roles. You
can assist, but you cannot do for them.
As for me, I
remain a work in progress. Still practicing the Gershwin standard and learning
to do less in order to do more – that is, creating something richer for
collaboration rather than one-upmanship. And so I “comp on” one chord at a
time.
Grace is endemic to the human condition. While it is often associated with faith – and rightly so – grace itself is unaffiliated. It emerges from how we feel about one another. For some, it is the gift received. For others, it is a matter of giving to give. For all, it is available to be had, to be held, and to be used for self and others.
Like many I became annoyed and disgusted with the erosion of our social discourse. It became acceptable – at least on the surface – to utter vile, even racist chants in public, all in the name of reclaiming what the chanters have believed was taken from them by folks – you guessed – different from themselves.
So, if there was ever a time for grace, it is now. Grace is the catalyst for acting upon the better angels of our nature. And it has multiple dimensions.
Connection – what we seek from each other
Be available. That is the secret to leading. The other day, I learned of a new head of an organization who sent out an initial email to his organization saying they would be seeing a lot of him. He made himself visible at various levels of the organization. He spent time listening and learning. In fact, one of the core messages contained in Michael Watkins’s The First 90 Days is to spend time learning before you start executing.
Yes, it takes time, but it does work. People notice when the CEO of an organization makes an effort to visit their workplace. The best executives do not spend their visiting hours giving presentations; they ask questions, not as “prosecuting attorneys” but as fellow employees who want to know more. They are making strong connections.
Candor– honesty without sugarcoating
So many successful executives attribute part of their success to the proverbial “two-by-four” they received as rising managers. These individuals had plenty going for them as contributors; they were well-educated and possessed significant business acumen to help them succeed. What they lacked was an understanding of people. Often, this was due to being thrust into an early management role without proper training. As a result, they sought to do everything, including telling everyone else what they needed to do.
Fortunately for them and their eventual career, a savvy boss pulled them aside and delivered feedback that landed right between the eyes. The boss complimented them on their technical abilities but then lowered the boom, “Unless you stop treating people the way you are treating them now, your future here will be limited. The smart ones got the message and mended their ways – with the help of others, maybe even a coach or two. Had they not received such candid feedback, their careers would have been akin to life in the Middle Ages – “nasty, brutish and short.”
Courage – speaking truth to power and standing by what you said
Warren Bennis, one-time university president and noted leadership author, wrote in the Harvard Business Review that most successful executives he knew had experienced a “crucible moment.” For Bennis, it came early. He was a 19-year second lieutenant who was thrown into the Battle of the Bulge as a replacement troop. Bennis credits his sergeant with showing him the ropes and saving his life.
Courage often requires sacrifice. It can take real guts to know when to step down. One such executive was John Riccardo, CEO of Chrysler (now Stellantis). In 1978, he recruited Lee Iacocca to replace him. “John was sacrificing himself to save the company,” Iacocca wrote in his autobiography. “[Riccardo] was over his head and he knew it. He blew himself out of the water to bring Chrysler back to life.” It was an act that to Iacocca made Riccardo “a real hero.” Riccardo had what it took to put the future of the company ahead of himself.
Commitment – making the promise and working to fulfill it
When Alan Mulally was selected as CEO of the Ford Motor Company in 2006, the once-vaunted automaker was facing severe financial difficulties. Mulally faced reality by getting his team to focus on the issues and commit to work to fix them. One way he did this was by convening weekly meetings of his direct reports (Business Plan Reviews) where heads of various functions would report on the status of their projects. Attendees used color codes: green (all good), yellow (having difficulties), or red (in trouble). At first, the executives — afraid of getting themselves sideways with their new boss — reported all green. In short order, understanding that Mulally was not out for scalps, they came to realize that accurate reporting was necessary for the company’s survival.
Mulally also insisted that the executives collaborate across functions and work together to solve problems. The process worked, and Ford was restored to fiscal health. In time, Fortune magazine named Mulally the third-best executive in the world – right behind Pope Francis.
Compassion – putting empathy into action
When Harry Kraemer, Jr. stepped down as CEO of Baxter, the dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern solicited him to return to his alma mater and teach. While teaching as a practice professor, Kraemer encountered a former student who planned to use his MBA to bring management expertise to impoverished farmers in Kenya. The young man called his effort the One Acre Fund. Kraemer pitched in to help, dedicating his energy and philanthropy to the fund.
Cheerleader– buck up others as you would like to be bucked up yourself.
When I was an executive coach, I made sure to compliment those I coached for the good work they were doing. It takes a degree of courage to lay yourself out to a stranger. I was careful always to be candid, sharing feedback from my colleagues and adding my perspective. Since that was sometimes tough, I made sure to compliment them when things went well. We need affirmation, especially when we are undergoing self-development efforts. It was heartening to see how much clients would perk up when receiving these verbal pats on the back.
Community– connecting one-to-one to learn, share, grow and build together
What connection – nurtured by candor, courage, commitment and cheerleading – creates is a sense of community. All of us want to belong to something greater than ourselves; we want to contribute to big goals, and we want to feel that what we do matters. Amy Edmondson, an author and professor at the Harvard Business School, pioneered the concept of “psychological safety.” Safety comes from the sense of belonging, the feeling that I can speak up and be heard. It’s easy to say but not always practiced.
The key to community is to make sure that people are heard, even when they disagree with you. Vibrant communities brook dissent over specific ideas. What keeps them from splintering is a commitment to shared values – individuals working collectively for the common good.
That’s where the community comes in; people want to belong. They embody the spirit of volunteers, as they are not working solely for money but to make a positive difference for their colleagues, customers, and communities.
Community outside of work
Community can occur at work, yes, but these attributes of grace also work in our personal lives. To gain a sense of how I will return to the example of Alan Mulally. Since he retired from Ford in 2014, he has been teaching organizations how to bring people together for a common cause to achieve agreed-upon goals.
One of Alan’s core beliefs is the concept of love, a value he learned from his mother, who preached it and embodied it for her son and her family. It was further nurtured by Frances Hesselbein, a former CEO of the Girl Scouts, with whom Alan got to know well. Frances believed that “to serve is to live.”
Alan’s philosophy of “Working Together” is grounded in a sense of alignment with the concept that “life’s work of service is our love made visible.” As such, the sense of service extends not only to what we do at work but also to how we live our lives in the community with our family and ourselves. Such a connection opens the door to learning more or leaning on the spiritual side of life.
In short, grace is the catalyst for the greater good, greater connection, and greater kinship. And so, let me close with a poem on the power of grace.
Commencement addresses are an annual exercise in inspiring the next generation to believe in themselves and to create their own future. Of the many addresses I have heard recently, one line stuck with me.
Watch your own game films!
A.J. Brown stated this advice in an address to 2025 graduates of the University of Mississippi. Brown, an Ole Miss grad, is an all-star receiver with the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles. As a football player, he spent a lifetime watching films of himself. His point was that watching yourself is not an ego trip; it’s an avenue to self-awareness. Something, as he noted, that is vital to anyone in leadership.
Brown’s point was to take stock of yourself as a means of understanding what you have done and what you might do better the next time. When players watch the films, they receive critiques of what they did and what they missed.
While few of us want to have our work put on film – or video – there is an alternative. Enlist the help of a peer coach, someone to serve as your spotter, who will watch you at work and regularly debrief you on what they observe.
Peer Coaching
Peer coaching is an exercise in trust. It is based on honest feedback. Here’s a framework to consider utilizing.
Select. Your peer can be a friend, but one who is willing to give you the straight dope on your actions and behaviors.
Observe. Watch how you interact with others. Keep an eye out for what others say about you to your face and behind your back.
Debrief. This step is the tough part. Your peer should discuss what you have done well as well as where you could improve.
Selection, observation and debriefing are form the basics of peer coaching. What peer coaching can do is enable you to see yourself as others see you. It is natural for us to overlook some of our shortcomings because we perceive them as insignificant.
Discover what you are missing.
For example, busy executives feeling the pressure of the moment will often jump in and finish the sentences of their direct reports. First off, this behavior is rude. Second, the executive’s closing may not be accurate. Third, and most importantly, behavior such as this will cause others to shut down. They will not bother to comment, which leaves the executive uninformed and essentially flying blind about the issue facing his team.
All too often, executives remain unaware of this bad habit, leaving them in the dark about it. A peer coach can point out what the executive is doing and point out the harmful side effects.
Peer coaching can serve as a mirror to your behavior. Consider it the management equivalent of a game film, which reveals how others perceive you. Even better, this coaching enables you to take stock of yourself, make adjustments, and, in the process, become more attentive to how you connect with others.
One of the words that bedevils teams at every level, but particularly in professional baseball, is in part because the season is so long.
Players experience them individually. Teams go through them collectively.
There’s an old saying that says baseball is like life, only more so. And that’s why watching how teams cohere, compete to win, and continue to persevere through the highs and the lows of the season makes it so instructive. And often it’s when times are most challenging that the best lessons emerge.
Slump in D-town
Take the Detroit Tigers. After a surprising finish last season, which saw them make it to the Division playoffs, the Tigers maintained their pace, posting the best record in Major League Baseball until just before and after All-Star Game when they went won one game in 13 tries.
What can be done? Evan Petzold, beat writer for the Detroit Free Press, did an extended interview with manager A.J. Hinch. His answers will reflect his long career in the game, as a World Series-winning manager with the Houston Astros, a catcher, and, yes, a psychology major at Stanford.
Face reality
Facing reality does not mean accepting it. “You can write a laundry list of things when teams aren’t going well about what’s going wrong.” Knowing what’s wrong does not mean you can fix it right away.
“It’s hard enough to press the reset button after a good time, where you win a series… The morale is good, but it’s tough on these guys.”
Competition is not going to make recovery from a slump easy. “Baseball is going to push back a little bit and make you play the next day and the next day and the next day.” No teams “we play [are] going to feel sorry for us. We’ve got to play better.”
Hinch likes what he sees in his players. “We’re not pouting and sulking… There’s a ton of togetherness. There’s a ton of guys trying to find solutions.” He adds something that every manager in any endeavor says: that it’s not effort, it’s “execution.” And that is hard.
Lessons to learn
All of us face slumps, times when no matter how hard we try, we cannot seem to make a difference. And so, when that happens, it is essential, as Hinch reveals, to take stock of who you are, what you can do, and what you need to do to improve and make changes when possible. Above all, you need to believe in yourself. Losing confidence erodes your ability to bounce back.
Hinch himself is no stranger to adversity. After winning the World Series with the Astros, he was suspended for one year for not doing enough to prevent his players from using video technology to steal signs from opposing teams. While he disapproved of what his players were doing, he accepted the consequences. “Because wrong is wrong, and it was very wrong, and I’ll make sure that everyone knows that I feel responsible. Because I was the manager and it was on my watch, and I’ll never forget it.” That mindset no doubt gives Hinch a perspective on resilience that is essential for leading through tough times.
As a fan, I hold out hope that the Tigers will regain their poise and continue on their winning ways. As a student of leadership, I am sure that the lessons managers like A.J. Hinch share will be valuable to anyone in management.
After all, Hinch believes in his players. “We’re trying to keep our chins up, keep our chest out and realize we’re still a first-place team. We’re one good win away from potentially taking off again.”
One of the reasons
negotiations grind to a halt is that one party is playing “the heavy” and the
other party seems at a loss as to how to deal with the situation. In in those
moments of hesitation, the heavy gets what they want and the acquiescent party gets
little.
It does not have
to be this way.
When dealing with “a heavy,” it is
important to identify the type of person you are dealing with. That is, “knowing what he’ll do to perpetuate his efforts,” writes globally-recognized negotiation expert
Dr. Greg
Williams.
“This identification process is
paramount to the strategies you’ll create to combat him. As part of the
identification process, you must be attentive to what he says, the words he
uses to make his pronouncements. That means you have to listen intently and not
be thinking of the rebuttals you’ll offer while he’s speaking.” [Disclaimer:
Dr. Williams is a member of 100 Coaches of which I am also a member.]
Steps toward negotiating
When dealing with someone who likes to play “the heavy,” it is important to identify the type of person you are dealing with. That is, “knowing what he’ll do to perpetuate his efforts,” writes globally-recognized negotiation expert Dr. Greg Williams. [Disclaimer: Dr. Williams is a member of 100 Coaches of which I am also a member.]
“This identification process is paramount to the strategies you’ll create to combat him. As part of the identification process, you must be attentive to what he says, the words he uses to make his pronouncements. That means you have to listen intently and not be thinking of the rebuttals you’ll offer while he’s speaking.”
Understand your outcome. Knowing what you want to accomplish before you begin negotiating is essential. Keep it front and center as you converse.
Do your homework. Find out as much as you can about the person with whom you will be negotiating. Ask questions of people who know them or have dealt with them previously. Read up on tactics they may employ against you.
Role play. Stage a give-and-take session with your team members. Consider it practice before the game. Ask others to ask you tough questions, even if it means being insulted.
Stay calm. Do not rise to the bait. Take a deep breath and stay focused on the outcome. “Be vigilant of nonverbal cues,” advises Dr. Williams. “Nod to display agreement, maintain an open stance to convey approachability, and mirror the opposition’s positive gestures. Always give attention to the body language negotiators exhibit, and align your gestures to increase rapport and trust.”
Seek common ground. Look past the taunts to find common ground. Express your desire to find solutions that benefit both parties (or all parties). Be the voice of reason. “Use interest-based negotiation techniques, such as asking open-ended questions to uncover underlying interests and exploring multiple options before settling on one,” says Dr. Williams. “To do this more effectively, seek to expose the ‘why’ the other party pursues the outcome they are after. Propose solutions that address all parties’ core needs, emphasizing collaboration over competition.”
Remain open to discussion. Know when to end a negotiating session, but make it clear that you want to continue exploring ways to work together.
One more thing
There is another solution. Silence. Too often, we become so enamored of our position that we exaggerate it, sometimes to the point of overstatement. Learn the art of the pause. You do not have to keep talking. Silence can be a stealth weapon in your arsenal. Coupling calmness with resolute silence can be masterful.
Negotiating with someone who is trying to provoke you is their tactic. It does not have to be yours. Learn how to keep your cool.
